The Script Ended

Second Life

When I started this blog I had visions of many posts being full of fun or interesting stories about an American in Paris. Not very original perhaps but another good (I hoped) addition to this genre of storytelling. A genre that I personally could not get enough of before I moved here and one that still captivates me. But, as I go on living my "new" life here in the City of Light, what is going on day to day in my head and around me often has nothing to do with Paris. Paris and the French culture are the backdrops, but my daily journey could be happening anywhere.

I am currently reading a book on what the author calls the "Middle Passage", I know this sounds like something from The Lord of the Rings but is a book about living through our mid-life. He talks about the middle life years as the beginning of our second life. As far as I am concerned, his terminology is right on. I am definitely in a second life - notice he does not say the second half of your life. That would infer that you just continue on in a steady stream flowing from your earlier years right on through to your "end". No, you instead go through all sorts of upheavals (mentally or otherwise) that forces you to decided which things you are doing or the way you are thinking really represents you and which is only stuff you learned and assimilated from your parents and other such influences and you are simply carrying that stuff around out of habit or obligation or some other such reason. The point is that this old stuff is not necessarily you. To begin your second life, you have to figure out what is really you and only take that stuff along.

Whew, I do not think that I explained that very well. But in any case, the author explains that this process is painful - there is no getting around it for anyone. If you feel like you are one of the lucky ones and have escaped the pain or struggles, you are in fact probably the loser. Why? Because you are not embarking on your second life but instead  only limping along holding onto whatever your parents or whoever, set out for you to do instead of getting to finally know what YOU really want to do or be.

I learned from my dear and wonderful mom to keep the hood on tight over my head to cover my eyes. That is how she coped so of course I came by it honestly and learned it all too well. And it allowed me to live a pretty darn good life for the better part of 4 decades or so. But true to form, the hood started to make my head sweat and I began to need to pull it off. Once the wind got into my eyes, all hell began to break loose if you follow the metaphor.

You know, I did not choose all hell to break loose but it happened anyway. Reading this book helps me to feel more normal about the resulting storm. Maybe my storm has been a bit more violent than some - but who am I to judge - a storm is a storm and when it is personal it feels violent.

So my storm and its aftermath happen to be taking place in Paris. lucky me

Commitments to Self Improvement (toujours)

January 1 begins the annual resolution roller coaster, at least in one's mind. Why only an idea for New Year's Day? Because January 1 is STILL a holiday (will they never stop?) so in reality all those resolutions begin after we finally stop celebrating.  I am thinking narrowly here because when I think of resolutions I almost always consider the "doing things that are healthier (read:self-denial) for me" variety. You know this familiar laundry list: dieting (stop eating all that cheese! I never should have moved to a country with 400 varieties), more exercise, more sleep, less wine, less procrastinating, blah, blah, blah. And then there are the "better for me from a different angle" ones: meditate, finally start my book, find that fulfilling job/ thing I was born to do, give back to the world (better get on this one fast as it seems to need all the help it can get), write more letters, call more often,........the list really can be endless.

I think that I have fallen off the wagon just thinking about them.

Then, the really nervy thing one must do in order to make CERTAIN you follow through; you must reveal these resolutions to others. Scary thought. Because then, instead of having only yourself to lead the guilt trip tour, your can have OTHERS to do the finger wagging along with you.

And probably the ultimate 21st century show of commitment is to then post these resolutions on your public blog.

I think that I may be too last century to go there yet - check with me later.

White!

As is my habit, I had finished my morning routine of making my espresso, cutting up some fruit, and getting my favorite yogurt from the frig, and was ready to settle down in the salon with these essentials and my computer when I caught a glance of something unfamiliar outside. The Place right outside my windows was white. Being from San Diego, I have never awakened to a snow covered landscape surrounding my home. Yes of course on my one ski trip in high school, but never where I live. So it is a white New Year here in Paris, kind of close to a White Christmas.

New Year. Again. This one, as have been the last few, will probably be full of big changes. Some I know will be bittersweet and others hopefully more happy than sad. The big one will be that after almost 25 years of living with one or more of my 4 children, this new year will end with an empty nest as daughter # 4 goes off to university. She has already been accepted early decision, so we know that she is going all the way to the west coast of the US (Reed College). My empty nest will look very different from how I had imagined it. No dad of my girls, no husband to set off on this new adventure with, no big family house to rattle around in together.

If though, I do not go down that well worn path of sad thinking I can envision a happy future, even from this vantage point. First of all the practicalities. Daughter # 4 is the queen of mess, even more sloppy than any of the other contenders for that crown that I birthed (was there a lingering sloth gene in my womb?). I don't think that I will miss my thrice weekly round up of all the moldy coffee cups, pizza crusted plates and empty soda cans from her room and it will be nice to reach into my drawers for a pair of socks and find them resting there waiting for me, rather than being the latest theft by my laundry challenged teenager.

Darn it - none of these prospects are making me feel any better.Truth is, I will miss my sloppy, mumbling, little Parisian teen....terribly.

Okay,  let's find other happy things to look forward to......I will finish my thesis in October (I' d better) and therefore receive my diploma in November. That SHOULD result in the beginning of a lucrative (okay, maybe not immediately but the beginning of the beginning..) career that will see me supporting myself someday.

And then there is MFM. He is making a pitch for the empty spot in my nest, actually he wants 2 spots.  If he wins it I will be trading a mumbling GIRL teenager for a mumbling BOY teenager. And the boy teenager will be mumbling in FRENCH. Hummmmmmm...maybe that will be the key to my quest for fluency.

If someone had told my 40 year old self, the one who was moving into my dream house in San Diego with my husband and four daughters that one decade later (only one!) I would be living with a Frenchman and his teen son in an apartment in Paris with my four daughters scattered around the world and my husband (ex) a Buddhist psych student living in a two room granny flat..........well, it goes without saying, would I have believed it?

The current nest is not yet empty, so we'll see, but in the meantime: I better brace myself for yet another wild ride.. hold on tight and.......Happy New Year.